Alder Elementary in east Portland poised to launch 'I Have a Dream' School

Doug Beghtel/The OregonianApril LaCombe and her students learn about animals in the Northwest last year at Alder Elementary School in east Portland.

Two kindergarten girls are talking. One asks the other, “Are you going to college?” She says, “Yes, how about you — are you going to college?” The first girl says, “No, I’m too young.”

Paz Ramos likes to repeat this conversation, which he says was overheard by a kindergarten teacher. The principal of Alder Elementary School says it shows how the “culture of college” has penetrated his school since it became the nation’s first entire school to be selected by the “I Have a Dream” Foundation last year.

The 2010-11 school year was a Dream planning year for the school, with some related activities. This fall marks the beginning of the first full “dreamer” year for the K-5 school on Portland’s eastern edge.

The designation by the “I Have a Dream” Foundation-Oregon will funnel money and support to the school with the goal of boosting state test scores, at least doubling high school graduation rates and helping 80 percent of the students earn a college degree or post-high school certificate. The students’ progress will be tracked for more than a decade as they move on from elementary school.

The “I Have a Dream” Foundation-Oregon was founded in 1990 to help low-income children reach success in school. Starting this fall, students from kindergarten through fifth grade will receive mentoring, extra tutoring and, perhaps, scholarships as a way to propel them into college and beyond. The foundation previously has selected third-grade classes in schools to receive this assistance, but Alder is the first entire school to be chosen.

The previous programs have been hugely successful, doubling and even tripling graduation rates, Ramos said.

“It was like winning the lottery for those kids, but it didn’t have an impact on the school or the district,” he said. The new model is intended to reach more students over a long period by focusing on an entire school.

The attempt to foster a college-bound culture is everywhere on display at Alder. A large poster just inside the front door proclaims, “Alder is where college begins.” Classrooms have signs noting the year the children inside will graduate from college. The kindergarten class, for example, says “Class of 2027.”

Ramos is passionate about seeing his students go to college, but the hill in front of him is steep. Alder is a high-poverty school in which more than two-thirds of its nearly 600 students speak English as a second language and more than 90 percent receive subsidized meals. Fewer than 15 percent currently go on to graduate from high school, let alone college.

And in results released this week, state test scores fell in several areas. Forty-five percent of third-graders passed the reading test, compared with 62 percent last year. The fourth-grade reading rate fell from 36 percent to 26 percent. But one bright spot: Fifty-three percent of fifth-graders passed the reading test, compared with 45 percent last year.

Mark Langseth, executive director of the “I Have a Dream” Foundation-Oregon, said Alder has all the challenges that any school could face, and so if the approach of high expectations and strategic community support can work there, it’s a model that can be applied anywhere in the state. The foundation was impressed with Ramos’ “no excuses” philosophy that he has pressed since becoming principal two years ago.

“A huge part of the battle is these kids have no history of college,” Langseth said, referring to the students’ family backgrounds and social context. He added: “If we don’t dig deep into that expectation and turn it around at an early age, we don’t have a chance.”

Langseth said Alder was chosen because its teachers showed a strong commitment to the foundation’s goals — every teacher at the school signed the application — and Reynolds School District agreed to hire a vice principal to help Ramos. The school also agreed to start a full-day kindergarten.

Langseth stressed that schools need community support to succeed: “We kid ourselves if we think schools can do this on their own.”

Last year, the school’s fifth-graders all wrote letters to colleges, and they went on an overnight trip to Linfield College. Ramos, a Linfield grad, said the college has been particularly helpful.

This year, the program will match up to 150 Alder kids with mentors or tutors.

Among the organizations signed up to help: Start Making a Reader Today and the Big Brother-Big Sister Program.

Ramos said housing is a big concern. It’s not unusual for a poor family to move two or three times while a kid is in elementary school, often out of a school district. That lack of stability makes it hard for a student to stay with a program like this one.

“We’re trying to communicate this to apartment complexes,” Ramos said. “If it takes $20 or $30 for them to stay, we’ll look for ways we can support that.”

He told the story of a third-grader who came to her counselor crying because she was going to have to move away from Alder. “I don’t want to move,” she said. “I’m going to college. If I move, I can’t go.”